


The Chances Against It Are a Thousand to One

by Politzania



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, New York City, No Smut, Pining, Pre-Slash, Pre-War, War of the Worlds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-08-28 15:22:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8451583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Politzania/pseuds/Politzania
Summary: A pining Bucky returns to the apartment after picking up some extra weekend work; Steve is listening to a radio announcer describing an invasion.   Desperate times require desperate measures.





	

The wind had picked up after the sun went down, so Bucky pulled the collar of his jacket up around his neck as he walked home. Last Friday, his boss had asked if he wanted to make some extra cash. If so, show up at the loading dock after church on Sunday and don’t ask any questions. He’d done as he was told, and spent the afternoon shifting boxes around the warehouse and loading a truck with unmarked crates. He figured the less he knew about what was suspiciously sloshing around in said crates, the better. Just because Prohibition was five years gone didn’t mean that rum running wasn’t alive and well in the city. 

He stopped in the local automat to warm up and grab some chow. The cream of tomato soup was piping hot and tasty - especially when you were used to what came out of a can and made with extra water. The grilled cheese went well with the soup, and he bought an extra slice of apple pie, wrapping it in a napkin to take back to Steve. 

Knowing that little punk, he’d probably forgotten to eat. Steve’s art class pals had gotten him some work designing posters and the final drafts were due at the WPA office tomorrow morning. Bucky admired the focus and dedication that Steve poured into his drawings. He could whip out a cartoon or a quick caricature in nothing flat, but for something that he was getting paid for - Steve would make every line and every letter right, no matter what it cost. That meant he would have spent the last several hours hunched over the kitchen table, his ink-stained hand curled around his pen.

He’d probably have a hell of a backache, but Bucky knew if he offered to massage out some of the knots in his shoulders, Steve would decline. He’d shrugged Bucky off a few nights ago, when he’d let his touch inadvertently turn to a caress. Steve had stood without a word and stalked over to the window, turning to give Bucky an odd, assessing look. Bucky couldn’t muster the words to apologize; to acknowledge what he had done that made an apology necessary. 

He didn’t know when, or how, or why he had fallen in love with Steve; at what point their life-long friendship had blossomed into something deeper for him; he just knew that it had. And Bucky knew he couldn’t do a damn thing about it. He supposed that was why he flirted so shamelessly with the waitress before going back out into the late October night. It was easy and exactly what everyone expected from Bucky Barnes, the ladies’ man. It wasn’t what he wanted, maybe even needed, but it would have to do. 

He took the stairs two at a time, three flights up, then down the hall to their tiny apartment at the back of the building. Bucky heard a low murmur through the door as he unlocked it, startled until he remembered that Steve had finally found a radio they could afford at the hock shop last week. It was a Crosley Septet that was missing a knob, but Bucky borrowed a pair of pliers from work and they worked just dandy for changing channels. He’d run the antenna wire out to the fire escape and they could pull in shows from as far away as Boston and Philly. 

Steve looked up from where he was sitting next to the radio, having dragged his chair over to it. “Buck, something awful is happening in New Jersey,” he said, by way of greeting. 

“Somethin’ awful is always happenin’ in Jersey, Steve.” 

“I’m serious, c’mere and listen.” Bucky sat down on the sofa, and Steve turned the volume up just a little, not wanting to draw the ire of their neighbors. 

“The monster is now in control of the middle section of New Jersey and has effectively cut the state through its center.” the announcer stated, his matter of fact tone in stark contrast with the content of his words. “Communication lines are down from Pennsylvania to the Atlantic Ocean. Railroad tracks are torn and service from New York to Philadelphia discontinued except routing some of the trains through Allentown and Phoenixville. Highways to the north, south, and west are clogged with frantic human traffic.”

“What the hell? How did that German madman get his planes and his troops over here?” It was the only thing that Bucky could think of, that somehow Hitler had invaded the east coast. 

“Wrong monster,” Steve replied tersely, pointing towards the sliver of sky they could see through their window. “They came from up there. Mars.” Bucky thought he was joking, had to be joking, but Steve had never looked so serious in his life. They continued listening to the broadcast, heard it report that three fighting machines, built and piloted by the creatures from another planet, were moving north on long mechanical legs to rendezvous with their compatriots. They heard the sounds of battle, a hastily assembled line of artillery no match against the invaders' weapon: an invisible beam of fire. 

At the mention of the machines spewing a black smoke, Steve’s breath hitched, and he started to wheeze. A squadron of bombers from Langham Field was sent to destroy the invaders; they took out one of the tripods, but the other machines aimed their heat rays to the sky and destroyed all eight planes. There was nothing to stop their inexorable progress towards New York City.

The repetition of the words “heat ray” and “tripod” and “Martians” suddenly made the events feel familiar to Bucky. An invasion from Mars, towering robots that strode above the trees, a mysterious beam that incinerated everything it swept over... of course! That old novel by H.G. Wells’ ... what was it called? War of the Worlds! They were listening to an adaptation of that story - something like the Lights Out radio show, but meant to sound like a real news broadcast. 

Taking a deep breath of relief, Bucky leaned forward to turn the volume knob down so he could tell Steve this was all just a story, a great Halloween trick. Steve stopped him by placing his own hand over Bucky’s. His eyes were wide with fear, but there was a determined look on his face; as if he were about to do something brave and stupid. Bucky had seen that look many times before, but had no idea what it could mean, not here, not now.

“Enemy now in sight above the Palisades.” continued the radio program, “Five -- five great machines. The first one is crossing the river. I can see it from here, wading the Hudson like a man wading through a brook . . . . Now the first machine reaches the shore. He stands watching, looking over the city. His steel, cowlish head is even with the skyscrapers. He waits for the others. They rise like a line of new towers on the city's west side . . . Now they're lifting their metal hands. This is the end now....” 

Steve leaned forward to close the distance between them. His left hand, the one not still covering Bucky’s, reached out to trace his cheek and cup his jaw. And then they were kissing. Steve was kissing him. Stunned, Bucky could only respond in kind. 

His hand twitched, and the radio suddenly blared: “You are listening to a CBS presentation of Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre on the Air in an original dramatization of The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells. The performance will continue after a brief intermission. This is the Columbia . . . Broadcasting System.”

 

Steve jerked away as if he’d been shot, nearly knocking his chair over. He got to his feet, but then doubled over, a choking gasp escaping his lips. Bucky scrambled up, dashing to the shelves above the sink to look for Steve’s asthma cigarettes. He shook one from the package with trembling hands; it took three tries for him to light the match. Since Steve usually couldn’t inhale deeply enough to get the cigarette going, Bucky was used to taking that first bitter puff. A perverse part of him wanted to put his lips back on Steve’s and exhale the smoke right into his mouth. Instead, he turned the radio back down to a soft murmur. 

Steve had gone over to the window and thrown it open to breathe in the chill evening air, to shock his lungs into compliance. His hands gripped the sill tightly as Bucky approached. Bucky silently tapped Steve on the shoulder with the hand holding the cigarette. Steve took it without a word, not meeting his eyes. Bucky ached to run his hand up and down Steve’s back; but the familiar soothing gesture was now fraught with dangerous intent. 

As Steve’s wheezing faded, he spoke, still facing out into the night. “It’s just... well... I thought we were going to be goners, ya know? That’s why I...”

Bucky interrupted, trying to make light of the incident. “You coulda gone down the hall and grabbed either of the O’Mara girls. They’re always up for some smooching.” 

“They’re not who I want.” Steve replied, carefully stubbing out the remaining inch of the cigarette. “The other night... I couldn’t help but imagine you touching me ... other places. Places where another man’s hands ain’t supposed to be. Wasn’t the first time, either.” Bucky couldn’t believe his ears. A desperate kiss when you thought the world was ending was one thing, but if Steve were saying what he thought he was saying... 

“Then you must be a goddamned mind reader, Stevie,” Bucky admitted. “ ‘cause that’s exactly what I was thinking. And I know you noticed I wasn’t exactly stopping ya from planting one on me just now.” 

Steve finally turned around, caution and hope mixed equally in his expression as he gazed up at Bucky. “You’re not just saying that, are you, Buck? ‘Cause you feel sorry for me?” 

“Dunno exactly what it is I feel for you, punk, but ‘sorry’ ain’t the word.”

“Then show me.” Steve went back over to where he’d knocked the chair over earlier and set it so it faced the sofa. He quickly stripped off his shirt, then sat backwards on the chair, arms crossed over its back. Bucky stared for a moment, not quite believing what Steve was doing, what it might mean. He moved to the sofa, positioning himself behind Steve, and placed both his hands on the narrow shoulders in front of him. 

Steve flinched slightly at the touch, head bowed over his arms. Bucky started to move his hands just like he usually did; kneading the taut muscles, working out the knots and kinks in his friend’s slight frame. The thin material of Steve’s undershirt wrinkled as he pressed the heels of his hands over his shoulder blades, ran his thumbs up and down either side of his bony spine. But then, he slid one hand gently up the back of Steve’s neck and into his hair. Bucky watched the dark blond strands weave through his fingers; found himself tracing the edge of an ear with a fingertip. Steve shuddered ever so slightly, then leaned into the contact with a small hum of pleasure.

Taking that as a good sign, Bucky put his other arm around Steve and across his chest to pull him closer. Bending his head, Bucky placed his lips on the side of Steve’s neck, just behind his ear. He smelled of Ivory soap and ink, a stray black smudge high on his cheek evidence of a moment of distraction from his work. Steve sighed, then turned into the embrace, reaching out to grasp the back of Bucky’s head to pull him into another kiss. 

Bucky had been too startled the first time for more than brief impressions: dry, chapped lips, a sense of desperation and defiance. But this kiss ... it was nothing like he’d imagined and everything he had always wanted. None of the girls he’d kissed before had been both so tentative and yet so insistent. A bit clumsy, yes, but intoxicating nonetheless. Steve wasn’t the only one short of breath once they broke apart. 

They had both ended up somehow on the sofa, Steve half on his lap. Bucky wanted more, so much more, but it was all so new, so fragile, that he didn’t dare push any further. Not yet. “Hey, let’s listen to the rest of the show. See if it comes out the same way as in the book,” he murmured quietly into Steve’s good ear. 

“Wait a minute, you know this story?” Steve asked, pushing at Bucky’s chest indignantly, “You knew it was all a sham? Let me get all riled up for nothing?” 

“No, no,” Bucky hastened to explain, “I was all caught up in it, too... didn’t put two and two together until just before... well, you know. I was gonna tell you - that’s why I reached for the radio.” Steve still looked a little bent of of shape, so he decided to pour on a bit of charm. “Seems to me like instead of facing the end of the world, we found ourselves at the beginning of a new one.” 

Steve shook his head with a soft huff of laughter. “Do lines like that really work on the dames you make time with, Barnes?” 

“Sometimes, yeah,” Bucky responded with a grin. “You saying you’re too smart to fall for my savoir-faire, Rogers?” 

“You are such a jerk,” came the reply. But Steve was smiling fondly at him, so they rearranged themselves more comfortably on the sofa, and Bucky turned the volume back up on the radio. They never did find out exactly how the broadcast ended.

**Author's Note:**

> I attended an enactment of the 1938 Orson Welles "War of the Worlds" broadcast over the weekend and got to wondering what if Steve & Bucky had been listening to the radio that night...


End file.
